Open Doors Day at the Italian Embassy: European path belongs to the young

Open Doors Day of the Italian Embassy in Belgrade offered students of several Belgrade universities an opportunity to get familiar with activities of the Regional Youth Cooperation Office set up with a goal of connecting young people across the Western Balkans.

Italian Ambassador Giuseppe Manzo said that the European path of Serbia and the Western Balkans belonged to the young.

He said that this was the reason why Italy, which hosts the forthcoming Trieste Summit as part of the Berlin process, wanted to dedicate the Summit to young people.

“The European path of Serbia and the Western Balkans belongs to you. Political leadership makes strategic decisions but you have the ownership over the process and that is why we want you to be engaged in that process,” Manzo said.

The RYCO has been established within the Berlin Process, said the RYCO Secretary General Djuro Blanusa. The goal of the Office, founded a year ago in Paris and headquartered in Tirana, is to support the Western Balkans countries on their respective European paths. It has branches in all six countries of the Western Balkans and is the most tangible result of the process.

Blanusa told the students of the Faculty of Political Sciences, the Faculty of Economy and the Faculty FEFA that the RYCO was a youth foundation whose main activity was youth exchange.

The budget of the Office is EUR1.5 million, EUR1.2 out of which will be allocated through grants for NGOs, schools and universities as well as informal youth groups and their offices to implement activities aimed at regional cooperation and reconciliation, Blanusa said.

The idea is to allow young people to gain insight into similarities they have with their counterparts from the other side of the border and learn that differences should not be something that divides, Blanusa said and added that 20 years after the wars it was important to turn a new page and as an example cited the mutual recognition of diplomas or visa liberalization.

The RYCO will open a branch office in Belgrade in early July, across the street from the Faculty of Law. The first call for proposals will be opened in autumn.

The RYCO will be presented at the Summit of Head of State and Government in Trieste on 12 July, whereas the University of Trieste will host the Western Balkans Youth Forum.

This was the fourth edition of the Open Doors Day at the Italian Embassy, organized in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture and the EU Delegation to Serbia.